


Waltz Among the Tombstones

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cemetery, Established Relationship, Fluff, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 21:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: When Noctis texted him to meet for a romantic, moonlit rendez-vous, a creepy cemetery in the middle of the night was not what Nyx thought he had in mind.





	Waltz Among the Tombstones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 2 of FFXV Halloween Week! Today's themes I followed were Vampires & Graveyards. Also posting on [tumblr](https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/188610212957/waltz-among-the-tombstones)!

Personally? This was not Nyx’s idea of romantic.

Sure, it worked for some people… well, more like a lot of people. There was a whole subculture of the outcast and the misunderstood who found solace in the more macabre interpretations of romance. He’d never judge of course, not for a single moment, but Nyx wasn’t sure he’d ever get it, regardless.

When he walked into a cemetery, Nyx felt more melancholy than lovey-dovey. And at night? He felt more uneasy than intimate. _I mean, you’re surrounded by dead people,_ he said to himself, as he lurked along the little gravel path. Being faced with one’s own mortality did nothing to inspire his inner romantic. Maybe it was a thing for people; maybe it reminded them to love what they had because it didn’t last forever? He really couldn’t guess.

But when it came time for Noct’s Hallowtide escapades, Nyx learned to stop asking. If his prince wanted a moonlit rendezvous in a creepy old cemetery, Nyx was powerless to deny him.

_For digging your own grave, you sure picked the right place,_ he texted along the way.

He was sure that flaking out on the royal masquerade that evening was a death sentence, if not literally then socially. Some might argue that the latter was worse than the former. In which case, Noctis was still going to need a hole dug to bury himself in.

_I’ll let you pick the plot,_ Noctis texted back. _Since you’re going down with me._ He added a skull and crossbones emoji at the end. Nyx shook his head, but smiled nonetheless. It shouldn’t have lifted his otherwise morbid spirits, but it did, because it was Noct, and no matter the setting, the circumstances, or the potential for social ruin, Noct always made him feel at ease.

Nyx found him sitting at the bottom of the stairs to an old, stately looking mausoleum, the ancient stone rain-washed and sun-bleached and overgrown with wild ivy, which it wore like an elegant emerald cloak against the chill in the night air. For a moment, he mistook Noctis for one of the carved figures that guarded the wrought iron gates to the crypt, heads bowed beneath somber stone robes.

Noctis was bent over his phone, the light from the screen casting his pale face in an ethereal blue glow. He was dressed in the deep black finery of the Lucian masquerade, as if tailored straight from the shadows of the cemetery itself. He wore a smoky colored silk waist-coast with silver buttons crafted in the shape of the royal seal, and a tapered, high-collared tailcoat of deep, dark blue that draped to artful tatters at his heels. A silver mask was shoved up over his hair, with long, pointed fangs dripping from the bottom.

“Damn,” Nyx said, with a low, approving whistle. “I know you’re supposed to bury treasure, but it’d just be criminal getting that dirty.”

Noctis rolled his eyes, not in the least bit startled by Nyx’s sudden announcement from the shadows, as if he had some sort of preternatural sense for his approach. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you had to be the one wearing it,” he scoffed.

Nyx knew that Noctis hated being dressed up for royal occasions, and try as Nyx might to sympathize, it was always difficult not to appreciate how great he looked when he did. But then he was biased. Because he thought Noct looked just as stunning in jeans and a sweatshirt as he did in thematic royal regalia.

“If it’s that uncomfortable, why don’t you take it off?”

Noctis quirked a brow at him, lips crooking back in a smile. “Why do you think I asked you out here?”

Nyx grimaced then, glancing around at the cold stone structures all neatly aligned around them. “Dunno, Noct. You know I don’t mind a little sacrilege now and again, but this might be pushing it.”

Noctis chuckled, unfolding to his feet. His coat settled around him like a bat’s wings, soft as a whisper in the dark. “I’m just teasing you,” he said. “Bit too cold for that.”

“Bit too creepy,” Nyx added.

Noctis shrugged, indifferent to the deathly stillness of the cemetery. “It’s quiet,” he said by way of a compliment. “Private.”

“So is my apartment,” Nyx suggested.

He sidled closer to his decadently dressed paramour, feeling far more inferior than he usually did in the ragged gray hoodie he’d thrown on in his haste to answer Noct’s siren call. He hoped he could tempt him to a much warmer, much less fatalistic escape from the expectation of royal responsibility. But Noctis was one of those people who saw something romantic in the moonlit night, something Nyx would have otherwise understood, if they were anywhere but where they were now.

“It’s too nice of a night,” Noctis mused, taking a few steps from the mausoleum to better breathe in the autumn evening.

Nyx determined not to think of breathing in the fumes of rotting corpses beneath their feet. Instead, he narrowed his attention to Noctis, watching the gossamer black cuffs of his sleeves fan out as he stretched his arms. There was certainly something hypnotic about him in that gothic costume, in the ghoulish gray moonlight swimming through the creaky branches of the trees. If Nyx closed his eyes and forgot about where they were, Noct was right. It was peaceful, almost otherworldly in its silence in the middle of such a massive, chattering city.

Crickets echoed each other from one side of the cemetery to the other, the faintest breath of cool autumn air murmuring through the dewy grass. Nyx waited to hear the despairing moans of earthbound spirits, waited to feel the cold finger of death stroke up the back of his neck. He waited for all of the superstitions he’d grown up with in Galahd to come rising from the grave, but none did. It was just him and Noctis, with the night to themselves.

“Well, I have to do something to keep you warm,” Nyx sighed. Taking his cue from the fangs on Noct’s mask, Nyx bowed, presented his hand, and said in an exaggerated accent, “May I humbly ask for this dance, Count Caelum?”

Noctis snorted, pursing his lips to keep himself from collapsing into a full fit of laughter. Instead, he straightened the heavy lapels of his coat and pulled the mask back down over his face. Then he cleared his throat, assembled himself into the formal Lucian stance of acceptance, and alighted his hand in Nyx’s.

“That you may, my faithful glaive.”

Nyx drew Noctis to his chest, mimicking the way he’d watched a hundred foreign dignitaries clip into a waltz from his nightly watches over the Citadel ballroom. Once Noctis was close, all grisly thoughts of bodies in the ground were chased from his head. Noct smelled like lavender and cinnamon, some seasonal cologne that Ignis probably impressed upon him for the royal occasion. His hands were cold, but his breath was warm where it washed across Nyx’s jaw.

It was a stumbling, silly waltz amongst the tombstones, neither of them following the proper etiquette, but neither of them cared. That was exactly what Noctis had fled into the night to get away from. Nyx knew that he felt more alive here, among the dead, than he did among the cold indifference of the living elite. Maybe there was a certain romance to that after all, Nyx thought.

“You should have told me you were coming in costume,” he teased. “I could have dressed for the part.”

“Oh? And what part would that be?”

“The eternally devoted consort to my undying prince of the night.”

Noctis smiled underneath his mask, then craned his neck forward to playfully nip his teeth against Nyx’s neck. The elongated points of his fine silver mask scratched against his skin. For a moment, Nyx’s gaze was filled with midnight black hair, his nose filled with the earthy autumn air and the homey floral scent of Noct’s cologne. His lips felt hot and cold on his throat, making his blood race.

“There,” Noctis declared as he drew away, his grin glinting in the moonlight. “Now you’re mine for eternity.”

He was only a vampire for a night, but his love would still be just as undying once the sun came up.


End file.
